Another disclaimer for the faint of heart, I write happy endings.
Chapter 36
Even half-way down the hall, he could hear the Christmas music playing from Tea's apartment and the three kids roaring along with the lyrics.
Rebecca shifted her weight from the wall. Her high stiletto pumps clicked together as she turned to face him. For not the first time he wondered what she really looked like beneath the pound of professionally applied false lashes and make-up.
Though he knew for a fact she didn't have a single freckle on her entire body.
Rebecca nudged a long pink thumbnail towards the door. "This is her place, right? What's with the kids?"
"They're her siblings," he said, opting not to mention Mokuba. Sensing how sticky the air had become the moment she noticed him, he wondered if he could just slip past her and into Tea's apartment without a fight.
"That makes sense. Mormons are supposed to breed like rabbits." She sent him a sour, glossy smile. "You ready for that?"
How she already knew all that about Tea, he didn't care to know. "That's really none of your business, Rebecca. Is there a reason why you're hanging outside her apartment like a stalker? No offense." Though he didn't know why he had meant it to come out as such. Wasn't it he the reason Rebecca left the band in the first place? Shouldn't he be groveling?
Rebecca shrugged, as though rolling his words from her shoulders. "You weren't in your apartment. I was about to leave when I heard your voice, followed by the stomping rabble. Oh, I'm not in your way, am I?"
Since she had moved to half cover the door with her body. "Sort of." And since he knew he had no reason for being this rude. "What did you need me for?"
"Just to talk. It's been a while." She dipped her shoulders forward, forcing his attention down to how her leather bustier only half held her perfectly tanned breasts in. "Does she know about me?"
"Yes," said Atem, already uncomfortable.
The smirk she made told him she knew exactly what she was doing.
"Like what you see? I bet you're beyond deprived. Good girls don't give their poor boys much."
His irritation jumped from a simmer to a raging boil. "I don't appreciate the way you're talking about her. If you've only come here to be petty, I'm done. Either move or be moved."
"Oh, move me. Be my guest."
Just as he moved to do that, and none to nicely, Tea opened the door.
For a frosty, stunned second, Tea stood as though stuck in the doorway. As her eyes moved from Rebecca to Atem, any uncertainty snapped and he moved forward. He pushed Rebecca aside and into the apartment.
"I got the tree stand," he said, trying to inject the jovialness he didn't feel.
"Who are you?" Tea asked, albeit politely. "Are the kids being too loud?"
"Oh, I don't live here. Not anymore, at least." Rebecca pinched her thighs together and did a little bow forward, probably to intimidate Tea with the sheer glory of her half-naked chest. "I'm Rebecca. Heard of me?"
The color drained from Tea's face.
"Oh," she said. "Oh, yeah, um…"
"Did Atem tell you why I left the band?" she asked.
Horrified, angry, Atem cut between them and grabbed the door. "This isn't the time," he growled, glaring at her.
But Rebecca just leaned around him to smile at Tea.
Tea lowered a hand that had jerked towards her chest. "He's right. If you want to talk about that, you can call or text me, but not here in front of my siblings."
The noise in the living room had died down, and Atem knew the kids were all ears to know who the weird skimpy stranger was at the door.
Atem nudged Tea back, better blocking Rebecca's view of her.
"Go home and get some clothes on," he said lowly. "Since when do you dress like a scamp?"
Her expression hardened. "Since the man I loved took advantage of me and then threw me to the side. Some would even go so far as to say you raped me."
"That is not true and you know it." he hissed. "You know what I'm like when I'm drunk, you came on to me."
"Please, guys, the kids," squeaked Tea, paler than ever.
"I'm more than happy to take this elsewhere." Rebecca straightened, her eyes only for Atem. "I'm not in town for long. Be a dear and get me a drink, won't you Atem? For old time sake?"
"No." He shut the door.
Blasted woman stuck her thick pump out, stopping it and raising her voice. "Girlie, you know what it's like to make love with him? He's quite good at it, but I guess that just comes with practice."
Atem thought about kicking her shoe away, even as the heat flooded his neck and face. "Forget it, I'm not talking to you ever. This is vile."
"No. This is reality. And you're an asshole."
Just as he readied to kick the shoe, it vanished, and the door closed with a loud snap.
Cheery Christmas music filled the quiet like a bawdy drinking song at a funeral.
Atem didn't want to know what Tea looked like right now.
Thankfully, someone had the sense to turn off the now out of place music. "Hey, guys, I have the latest Poke'mon Stadium at my house. Would guys like to come and play it?"
Once more Mokuba showed his good breeding and raising. Atem was going to seriously have a hard time bad-mouthing his producer after this.
"Oh my gosh, can we, Tea?" asked Shea.
"What about the Christmas tree?" asked Trajan. "Why do we have to clear out? It was his slutty ex—ack! Get off me, Shea, you freak! Are you trying to kill me?"
"You're not leaving till Sunday, right?" said Mokuba through the squabble. "You got two days to fill up, and we've been out all day. Let's do something relaxing."
"Yeah, we're going to want something to do those days," said Shea in her uncanny way of sounding older than she really was.
"I can call up Roland," said Mokuba. "Is that alright, Tea?"
"Freak, guys, you're probably hurting her feelings right now, running away like that after all she got us," said Trajan, making a keychain sound like an entire toy store.
Tea surprised him by saying a quiet, clear, "Yeah. I know where you live. Be back by eight."
Atem stepped aside as Mokuba and Shea half dragged Trajan out the door. Just as they managed to get his heels out, he broke free and leveled a haughty finger on Atem.
"Don't go anywhere! I'm beating you black and blue when I come back, perv!"
"Trajan!" Shea cried.
And then the door was shut and Atem found himself in a very cold, very still silence. Wal-mart bags and cheery holiday boxes full of decorations had been scattered across the living room. The tree he and Tea had hauled up there had been set against the wall, waiting for the stand that he still held under his arm, so he started with walking in and setting it on the counter.
"I'm really sorry about that, Tea. I had no idea she'd…I sort of ruined everything, didn't I?"
"No," she said, still not looking at him. "They were talking about going to Moki's house before you came here. I had already mentioned to them that I was too tired to do any decorating. You've done nothing wrong."
"Not now, I haven't." Cold and hot all at once, he ran a sweaty palm through his hair. "But the way you're acting right now makes me think you hold my past actions against me."
"No," and she sounded faint now, ghost-like. "No, it's not that."
"Then what is it? Look, she doesn't mean anything to me, she never did. I don't even remember much of what happened, you know how I am when I'm drunk."
"Yeah." And she finally seemed to come to life as she moved towards a lone, bright red sofa she had found off Craigslist. She didn't drop herself into it, but lowered herself tenderly, as though aware she had turned to glass. The color had yet to return to her face, and as Atem came near, he thought he could see the old darkness of the past few weeks. Except this time she was open with it, not waiting for a moment when she thought no one was looking to fall into her less pleasant thoughts.
He crouched down in front of her to meet her bowed gazed. "Talk to me, Tea." He put a hand on her knee.
Rather than meet his eyes, she stared down at the hand touching her.
"I've been stupid, Atem. I'm sorry."
He frowned at her thin tone. "What for?"
She closed her eyes and breathed deep through her nose. "This was never going to work."
His insides clenched, taught and cold. "Tea, Rebecca being a bitch doesn't change anything. She's not going to hurt you, and I'm not going to go off and sleep with someone."
"What if you're drunk?" She was looking straight at him now, arresting his gaze with a sure, raw strength. "What if you're drunk and not alone? What if you're famous and at a party surrounded by fans and beautiful people who have no problem with being laid? Who would even think it the luckiest day of their lives to catch you like that?"
"That won't happen. Tea, I'll keep you safe, you don't have to be afraid."
"And I'm not stupid." It wasn't spoken with anger, but in the bland way any unwanted truth was spoken. "I'm not stupid to think you'd change everything just because I'm with you. People change because they want to, for themselves, because it's something they want deep in their gut. Not because their current girlfriend doesn't agree."
He snapped up straight, stiff with electricity. "I hate it when you talk about yourself like that, like you are just a passing fancy. Have I ever given you any reason to think that I'm not absolutely crazy about you?"
"It's quite common to be crazy about your girlfriend," she said, still in the bland, light voice, and staring up at him with those hard, glacier eyes. "I'm not aiming for a good boyfriend, Atem. I'm not even aiming to be a good girlfriend. I'm aiming for eternity, and there is only one man who can qualify for that. I was a fool to jeopardize something so important just because…because of my own feelings. I've been…bad."
Blood flushed out from the tense chill he had become, prickling his neck with sudden sweat. He clenched his hands at his side.
"Oh, so that's what I am?" he snarled. "A bad choice? A sin? Why, because I happened to have had sex while I was drunk?"
"I didn't say that," she said quickly.
"You might as well have. Calling yourself stupid and bad for choosing to be with me, how do you think that makes me feel?" And from the ugly, smarting place within him he spat out the words he knew would hurt her the most. "Why can't you think before you talk? Maybe I'll go kill myself now."
It was as though he had thrown a boulder at her. The glacier strength of her gaze shattered and she started to shake.
Even as guilt fought to make its way through his rage, he said, "And please don't fall apart like you did when you found porn on my phone."
"I'm not going to," she said, low and steady. "And I never meant for you to see that."
"Oh, well I did, and guess what? It made me feel like the worst scum in the world, and now you're just verifying that I am. Well, I'm sorry, I don't think there's anything wrong with sex. If you'd just stopped being so afraid of it, maybe you'd see there wasn't anything horrible or sinful about it either."
Now she was standing up too, and even though her hands shook, the steel in her gaze was back harder than ever and on fire.
"Sex is sacred and beautiful, that's why they call it love making. Just because I want to save that for my spouse and don't give it away like free tissues does not mean I'm afraid of it. I treasure it, and that's why—that's why what Rebecca said felt like being stabbed."
And even as she said that, her steady, sure voice shook and her steely eyes, though hot with conviction, shone with tears.
His self-righteous indignation faltered.
"Sex is so important to me," she continued. "That it hurts—it hurts more than I can even say-but you will probably never understand. You'll probably never know, and I was stupid enough to date you and think that maybe it wouldn't affect me, that I'd be okay. But I'm not." The tears were pouring out now, dripping off her face. "I thought I could be okay with you drinking yourself stupid or how horrible it would feel whenever I knew you had been drunk and how scared, how insecure it makes me feel whenever your stressed or struggling because I know where you'll go to cope—I thought I'd be fine with the fact that you didn't know God like I did and wouldn't be able to share the happiness I feel when I talk of Him and sing of Him and delight in the only Daddy I have who has stuck with me through thick and thin."
"Tea…" Oh crap, he knew where this was going.
"But I'm not okay." She had looked to the ceiling now, holding her shoulders back and clenching her teeth hard to hold back the sobs. "I'm not okay. I hurt. So. Much. I tried to take care of it, I tried to figure it out, but I was just trying to avoid the inevitable." She dropped her chin and met his eyes again. "Atem, you can't take me to the temple or back to my Daddy. You can't help me raise the kind of family I've been desperately dreaming of. You just hurt me. I'm done."
She reached up around her neck, fingers on the clasps of her necklace. "I'm sorry for being stupid and cruel."
He reached out to stop her hands, but she shrugged him off. "Tea, don't do this. I'm sorry, I said the totally wrong things, you should have told me how you felt earlier. We can fix this."
She wagged her head from side to side. "No. I need to stop doing this to you." She unclasped the rosegold necklace and handed it to him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ever came into your life. I've done nothing good for you. It would have been better if I had just kept my mouth closed, back at the hotel, and after that."
He pushed the necklace back towards her, even as he thought his chest my cave in. "No. I told you it was a gift. It's yours."
Her face twisted up, and it wasn't pretty. "But it was expensive."
He just pushed it back till her hands hit her chest and stepped back.
"Don't be sorry," he said, hollow, hollow, hollow.
And because he knew if he spoke another word it would all come out like vomit, he turned around and left her there, alone and pale in her Christmas scattered apartment.